Guardian Grammar

Posted on the 04 February 2013 by Charlescrawford @charlescrawford

Good idea. An online English grammar test over at the Guardian.

But what's this? I got one wrong!?

Identify which of the following nouns are abstract and/or collective

8. Pride

   Abstract

   Collective

   Abstract and collective

I gave the answer as being Abstract. According to the site the correct answer is Abstract and Collective.

A trick question, in that it refers simultaneously to the emotion and the grouped lions?

These multiple choice exercises are fraught with problems. Crawf Minima had to do a verbal reasoning exercise. It turned out that the teacher had correctly marked it according to the rubric given, but also that one of her answers was correct even though the computer programme said it was wrong. The people setting the test had not realised that there might be more than one correct answer.

Stupid.